Raising Healthy Children

I'm not just meaning that they eat all of their vegtables, goodness knows mine sure do. But are they completely healthy and happy from the insides of their minds, to the smile on their face, way down to the tips of their toes?

I'm trying on a daily basis to teach my two girls (ages 6 & 8) about different ways of being healthy. That expressing anger is ok, expressing it by screaming in your sister's face...not so much. Instead introducing the idea of meditation and journaling. Its on a very small scale and more "monkey see, monkey do" at this point but its creating some great spaces and conversations.

Its a chance for me to learn about not just teaching them but to take care of my own little child who's got her own scars. We've started tackling the conversations about Spirituality and I try and include them in what I'm learning in school. My oldest and I went on a "date" to the coffee shop the other night and she very maturely asked me about what I was learning in school, did I like my books, my classmates, and my teacher. She wanted to then talk about things that "were going on with her", she recently experienced the loss of her pet rat and had been writing about it in a class journal. It was about her feelings, her being scared to love her new rat, being angry and taking it out on her sister, wondering if she did somethign to cause the tumor to grow. Pretty heavy conversations to have with an 8 year old and I think many parents don't encourage that level of discussion with their children. She'd been trying to talk to friends about it but hadn't gotten very far.

I'm really eager to not only experience my own growth as I learn in the Holistic Health Education program but to be able to share that knowledge with the next generation. I've heard from teachers and other adults at school that both of my girls have mentioned to others that they need some "chill out time" and will go sit somewhere and breathe. Don't know if it will catch on with any of the other kids but at least I hear about mine trying things out and finding out what works for them.